Back from Beyond
by The Lady Wolfshead
Summary: *Book 5 Spoilers* I'm... dead? ... I've got to get back!
1. Beyond the veil

*Book 5 Spoilers*  
  
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine; I'm just borrowing them for a little while. The plot is mine.  
  
*  
  
Sirius opened his eyes, feeling more than a little disorientated. What the hell had just happened? He remembered going to Harry's aid, remembered Dumbledore's arrival, remembered duelling with that vile woman Bellatrix, and then - what? It was all a blank.  
  
He looked around. This was nowhere that he'd ever been before, he was sure of it. There was a path, buildings in the distance, and everything seemed calm, peaceful. How did he get here? More importantly, how the hell would he get back? He needed to check if Harry was okay, if Harry - oh, God, Harry!  
  
Sirius turned as if to walk back, but found the way behind him barred. He could see an archway in the distance but an invisible barrier was between him and it, stopping him from drawing near. He knew that the way back to Harry lay beyond the arch, and he was determined to reach it. He gritted his teeth in determination and patted his pockets for his wand . . .  
  
"Sirius?" Sirius whipped around and his jaw dropped open. Lily and James Potter were running towards him, mixed expressions of joy, surprise and fear on their faces. "What happened?"  
  
"I . . . don't know . . . I'm dead?" Sirius asked hoarsely. James nodded.  
  
"This is Serenity, one of the Villages of the Dead. It's mainly for wizards who have perished at the hands of Dark Wizards," Lily confirmed. She bit her lip. "Harry?" Sirius shrugged.  
  
"We were at the Department of Mysteries, battling the Death Eaters . . . that's all I can remember. Dumbledore was there."  
  
"Dumbledore!" Lily's face broke into a smile of relief. "So he'll be all right?"  
  
"I expect so," said James, putting his arm around his wife. "If anyone can drive the Death Eaters back it's old Albus." He grinned at Sirius. "It's good to see you, Padfoot, mate!"  
  
"Yeah, good to see you, Prongs!" Sirius grinned, and turned to follow his friends back to the village, his mind was reeling. He was dead? Surely not? The curse Bellatrix had cast hadn't been the Killing Curse, had it? The presence of his best friends confirmed the fact that he was, but he still couldn't believe it. He couldn't be dead! He still had so much to do! He had to look after Harry!  
  
"Lily, James, I'm sorry," he muttered. James spun around and gawped at his fellow Marauder.  
  
"What for?"  
  
"I failed. I promised to look after Harry if anything happened to you, and what do I do? I land myself in Azkaban and get myself killed, just when he needs me most!"  
  
"Sirius, you did your best," whispered Lily, stepping in and giving him a hug. "It can't have been easy, but James and I appreciate what you've done for him."  
  
"Yeah." James started laughing. "Snuffles!"  
  
"How did you know that?" demanded Sirius.  
  
"We've been watching. There's a room we can take you to. Do you want to see?"  
  
*  
  
Sirius gazed through the window down at the scene below, an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. Harry was raging at Dumbledore and smashing his equipment.  
  
"I - DON'T - WANT - TO - BE - HUMAN! I DON'T CARE! I'VE HAD ENOUGH, I'VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE . . ."  
  
Sirius had seen enough. "Off," he muttered, and the picture from the window disappeared, to be replaced by the view down onto Serenity. He felt guilty. He knew he shouldn't feel guilty about dying, that wasn't his fault, but all the same . . . it wasn't fair on Harry, the poor boy had had enough hardship in his young life, without adding to his troubles already, and the prophecy hanging over his head didn't help . . .  
  
Sirius got up, a determined expression on his face, and strode out into the sunshine, James and Lily following, Lily wiping tears from her eyes.  
  
"Where are you going?" demanded James.  
  
"Back. I need to get back. Harry needs me," explained Sirius, striding out of Serenity and back towards the archway.  
  
"You can't!" Sirius turned to face James, a dangerous gleam in his eyes.  
  
"James, you saw the state he was in! I can't leave him like that, I can't! I have to get back!"  
  
"Sirius, it's no use trying! You're not allowed, you've passed over! Believe me, I tried!"  
  
"Since when have I ever bothered about rules, eh?" Sirius was grinning now, but it was a dangerous grin, and to James he looked almost exactly like his Animagus form.  
  
"I'm serious, Padfoot mate, they throw you into Limbo if you put a foot wrong." Sirius laughed.  
  
"They have detentions on the Other Side too? That's just . . ."  
  
"It's not like some school detention helping scrubbing down Snape's classroom, it's a lot more serious than that, it's . . ." James opened his mouth and closed it a couple of times, doing a passable impression of a goldfish, then shrugged lamely. Sirius' expression softened.  
  
"I've got to try," he whispered. "I wouldn't be able to rest knowing that I hadn't tried." 


	2. The afterlife ain't what it's cracked up...

Thank you for all my lovely reviews ( It's nice to know that people actually enjoy the drivel I produce occasionally.  
  
Standard disclaimers apply.  
  
*  
  
Sirius, James and Lily were lounging around outside James and Lily's lodging, Sirius glaring around him with an expression that suggested that everything was not to his liking. He idly sipped his drink and pulled a face. Everything that existed here was just a pale imitation of what it was back on Earth. Nothing had any texture, any flavour, any substance . . . Sirius glared at a tree, and thought that it made much more effort to look like a real tree the longer he stared at it.  
  
"What's up, Padfoot?" asked James. Sirius shrugged. He couldn't stay here. Everything just felt so . . . so utterly and completely bland! He didn't know what he was expecting the Afterlife to be like; he just knew that this wasn't it.  
  
"It's not like this forever, you know," said James, accurately guessing Sirius' thoughts. "This is just where we come to wait for those we wish to see again. Then the fun begins."  
  
"What sort of fun?" asked Sirius, trying to summon some enthusiasm into his voice.  
  
"A journey of some sort. A long road, or a desert or something, I don't know, I wasn't paying attention."  
  
"James!" sighed Lily, rolling her eyes. "What have I told you . . ?"  
  
"What?" demanded James, genuinely bemused.  
  
"You're not at school anymore you know, you actually have to listen to what people are telling you sometimes."  
  
"Well, it's not like it was anything important or anything!"  
  
"James!" Sirius laughed as his friends bickered good-naturedly. It was good to see that even after death, some things didn't change. But even so . . . he just could not shake off a feeling that something awful was going to happen to Harry, and he wouldn't be around to help . . . he couldn't accept that, he couldn't just relax here and wait for him to die . . .  
  
"So, how do you go about getting back?" he wondered, unaware that he had voiced the thought out loud.  
  
"What?" James and Lily stopped bickering and turned back to him.  
  
"You can't go back, I've told you before," said Lily. "James tried to get back to Harry once."  
  
"Only once?"  
  
"Yeah," James confirmed, with an involuntary shudder.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"James doesn't talk about it," said Lily sharply. James, who had opened his mouth to speak, closed it again and shot Sirius a sheepish grin.  
  
"The way she goes on sometimes, I'm surprised the Auditors haven't tried to get her to join," he said with a laugh.  
  
"Auditors?" asked Sirius. Lily shot James a dark look.  
  
"Yeah, they're like . . . they're the beings who see that everything goes as it should. They don't like wizards much, they say we're tinkering with things we don't understand, and they reckon we'll bring about the destruction of the world. They don't even like sentient life much, to tell you the truth. Their job is to watch, and if they see anything untoward they're supposed to deal with it."  
  
"Then why haven't they done something about Voldemort?" demanded Sirius.  
  
"Because the way they see it, that's how things should be," explained James. "They say it serves as a warning to humans everywhere, and sometimes they go on about how it could be used as an example to prove that human beings need instant eradication from the face of the planet. I just think they're vindictive bastards and they like watching us suffer." James jumped up suddenly, and a second later a bolt of raw magic hit the place where he had been sitting. He grinned. "They're also very, very predictable."  
  
"James, you know you shouldn't annoy the Auditors!" said Lily sternly, but Sirius thought he detected a hint of amusement around her eyes. They fell silent, watching where the magic had turned the ground into a marshmallow- like substance.  
  
"How do people become ghosts?" asked Sirius after a while.  
  
"You either have to have a burning desire to stay on Earth, or just frightened of what comes next. I caught something about the process of applying to be able to appear to a chosen one, but I think the waiting list for that is a couple of millennia."  
  
"So that's out then," sighed Sirius, glaring moodily at the marshmallow ground.  
  
"Cheer up, Padfoot! You'll think of something," said James cheerfully. "And when you do, tell me, will you?"  
  
"James! You've already been cautioned once; you heard what they said they were going to do . . ."  
  
"Look, Lil," explained James patiently, "if Sirius does manage to find a way back, I want to know too. It would be good to go back. Think of it, we'll be able to see Harry, to be a proper family! And if I get a hold of Wormtail I'll . . ." James broke off and made violent ripping motions with his hands.  
  
"It would be nice, I'm just saying . . ." Sirius sighed and tuned his friends' bickering out, trying to think of a way to get back to Earth. If only he could find a way around that invisible barrier . . .  
  
Hang on. What if the path back wasn't the only way to the archway? What if there was another way? A back way, so to speak? He grinned.  
  
"Hey, guys - look, just shut up for a moment, will you? I've got an idea . . ." 


End file.
